


One Day at a Time

by ottercakes



Series: More than shoulder pads and makeup [2]
Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gen, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29439246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottercakes/pseuds/ottercakes
Summary: TW: Eating DisordersHeather Duke and Heather McNamara take a trip to the mall while Veronica's at Heather Chandler's. Mostly movie universe--see previous work for more details.
Relationships: Heather Duke/Heather McNamara
Series: More than shoulder pads and makeup [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2162403
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	One Day at a Time

**Author's Note:**

> So...I guess I'm turning this into a series? Sorry to anyone who wanted to see more of Heather Chandler's storyline--I'll get to more of that later. I'm probably going to have each work sort of tackle a different issue that each of the Heathers/Veronica is dealing with, so we'll get to look at each of the characters a bit more. Again, this is mostly set in the movie universe, but characters will probably be more like the musical characters. This is obviously just my interpretation of the characters, so feel free to disagree with me on anything. Another warning--there are discussions of eating disorders in this work, so please don't read if this could be triggering for you. Also, I always felt like Heather Duke was more likely to be on the side of restricting eating rather than binging/purging--in the movie, when she's eating a chicken wing, Heather M and Veronica seem to be surprised by this behavior, so I feel like she probably wouldn't be eating much at all and then purging what she did eat. Please let me know if there are any inaccuracies, suggested changes, etc. and especially if I should add/change anything to the trigger warnings. Feedback is always appreciated--hope you enjoy!

Duke gave a light scoff as she watched Veronica approach Heather Chandler’s house. Like she’d be able to figure out what was up with Chandler. Chandler wouldn’t even listen to  _ her. _ Her friend of...some number of years. Her second-in-command. Her right-hand man (or whatever the female equivalent of that phrase was). That was her, wasn’t it? She, Heather Duke, was the second most popular girl at school, the closest in rank to Chandler, and if even  _ she _ couldn’t break down Heather Chandler’s walls, there was no way in hell that some...some random, greasy little nobody was going to. That’s what Veronica was, Heather Chandler had said it herself (of course, she then complimented her bone structure and let her into the group, but Duke had reminded her that it wasn’t like she was any better than her. Duke had just been vomiting her guts out into the toilet, didn’t Chandler remember that? Veronica wasn’t any thinner or prettier or better than Heather. Heather was  _ strong. _ She was  _ valuable _ . More than Veronica. More than anyone. Heather Chandler knew that). A small knot of worry twisted Duke’s gut. What if...what if Veronica really  _ did _ manage to find out what was wrong with Heather? What if she was able to fix it when Duke just...couldn’t? What if Chandler decided that Veronica was better, worthier of her trust? What if she...no. She wasn’t going to do this right now. She wasn’t going to think about Heather opening up to Veronica, or Heather and Veronica hanging out, just to the two of them, or...or any of that stuff. Because that wasn’t going to happen. That definitely would never happen, because Duke was...so much  _ more  _ than Veronica, and Chandler knew that, she knew it--

“Heather?” McNamara’s voice startled Duke out of her spiral. The smaller girl’s eyebrows were furrowed with concern. “Are you alright?”

Duke glanced at her and nodded quickly. “Mm-hmm. Yeah, fine. Why?”

“I asked if we could go to the mall.”

“Oh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yup.” Duke pulled out of the driveway a little jerkily, squeezing the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.

“Are you sure you’re alright? You’re acting strange.” Mac was still looking at her skeptically, scrutinizing her with her warm brown eyes.

“ _ Yes _ . I’m fine.” Duke paused. “Wait--why are we going to the mall again? I thought we were going tomorrow?”

“Uh--well--yeah, but--but I just thought it would be fun, y’know, spend some time together since Veronica’s with Heather right now?”

_ Don’t remind me, _ Duke thought to herself, but shrugged. “Uh--okay. Sure. Fun.”

Pulling the Jeep into the parking lot, Duke got out of the car and slammed the door shut, Mac following suit. “Okay, where to?”

“Uh--I don’t know, let’s just go look around?” Mac suggested hopefully.

Duke glanced at her quizzically. “We go to this mall like, every week, what do you mean, ‘look around’?”

Mac shrugged. “I dunno, let’s just see where we end up!”

Duke sighed. “Fine. Lead the way.”

Of course, the first thing that they passed just  _ had  _ to be the food court. Duke winced. The fragrant scents of cooked food wafted from each vendor, and she squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on holding her breath.  _ Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t you dare-- _ she glanced up suddenly. She hadn’t realized Mac’s small hand grasp her wrist and suddenly realized that she was being dragged toward the closest counter. 

“Hi! Two chicken club sandwiches, please, and two waters, one with ice and one without? Thanks!” The woman nodded and walked off to the kitchen farther back.

“ _ Heather! _ ” Duke hissed, panic rising in her chest. “What the fuck--”

“Alright, that’ll be fourteen dollars,” the woman said, having returned with two brown paper bundles and two plastic cups of water.

McNamara nodded, pulling out a twenty dollar bill and handing it to her. “Keep the change,” she added cheerfully, scooping up the sandwiches and waters and hurrying to the nearest table before she dropped them. 

“Heather! What--”

“Here, your sandwich.” Heather was looking at her again, warm brown eyes unreadable.

_ Don’t do it. Don’t fucking do it, you really can’t stand to gain another couple pounds, you’re a slob, you’re fat, disgusting, worthless-- _

“Heather?”

_ \--weak, ugly, pathetic-- _

“Uh--yeah.” 

Duke looked down at the paper bundle in front of her. A war raged inside her head as her hand remained frozen in her lap. 

_ Don’t you dare touch that, you-- _

It’s okay, you should probably eat something, it’s pretty healthy anyways--

_ You’re fucking pathetic, you can’t even bear to refuse one sandwich-- _

It’s just one, it won’t kill you, you know that this is the right thing to do--

_ Do you really want to step onto that scale again and see the number go up-- _

You’re alone with Mac right now, don’t want her to get suspicious, it’s better to just eat it--

_ You think you try so hard to lose weight, but if it’s really that easy to just let yourself-- _

You can get better, that voice can go away, all you have to do is just resist a little--

_ And you wonder why Heather likes Veronica better. _

“Heather?” Mac asked softly. Duke glanced up to see her holding out a piece of the sandwich, unwrapped. “You don’t have to finish it if you don’t want to, but it’s good. Try it.”

Duke bit her lip. Before she could talk herself out of it again, she grabbed it and took a bite. Mac turned to her own sandwich, taking a bite as well. The war in her head went on.  _ You know where the bathroom is. Take care of it later. _

Duke ended up finishing her sandwich. She tried not to, tried to tell herself to stop, but Mac was right--it was good. The whole time, the voice in her head repeated over and over,  _ you better be eating this much because you know that it’ll be easier to bring it back up later. That better be the reason. _ Sure, she thought. That’s why. Whatever you say.

As soon as they’d finished, Mac hopped up from her seat and tossed the wrappers and cups in the trash cans. Duke made a beeline for the restrooms at the back of the food court, quickly slipping away from Mac when her back was turned.

“Heather!” Shit. Mac cheerfully pranced over to Duke, golden curls bouncing as she grabbed her wrist and dragged her out of the food court, farther into the mall. “C’mon, let’s go, hurry!”

“Where?” Duke asked, slightly out of breath from Mac’s urgent pace. Mac paused for a moment, glancing around, before seeming to make a decision and turning to the right.

“Uh--here!” she said, quickly dashing into the nearest shop.

Once they were inside, Duke finally managed to pull her wrist free from Mac’s grasp and looked at her quizzically. “A watch store?”

“Y-yup! Yeah, this watch store is  _ great _ . I really like all the...variety.”

Duke sighed. “Great. Well, you can look around at the great  _ variety _ of watches here, I’m gonna head to the bathroom.”

“NO!” Mac quickly grabbed Duke’s hand once more and pulled her out of the watch store with a surprising amount of force for someone with such a small frame.

“Jesus, what the fuck is up with you today, Heather?” Duke snapped. 

“Nothing! Nothing, I just--really like that blazer, you should totally try it on, let’s go!” she said quickly, pointing frantically at a display window across from the watch store and beginning to tug her towards the shop.

“Okay, fine, just let me use the bathroom and we’ll go there--”

“No, I’m sure they have a bathroom in there--”

“I seriously doubt that, it’s literally the size of this watch shop--”

“Well, I guess there’s no bathroom here, so let’s go there and just see, and if not, then you can try on the--”

“HEATHER!” Duke freed her hand from Mac’s and fixed her with a glare. The smaller girl fell silent and opted to study the shops behind Duke rather than meeting her gaze.

Mac fidgeted a bit with the hem of her skirt before meeting Duke’s gaze innocently. “Mm-hmm?” Her voice was an octave too high to be unsuspicious.

Duke huffed, rolling her eyes. “You aren’t subtle, you know.”

“I don’t know what you--”

“Drop the act!” Mac stopped fidgeting and instead dropped her gaze to the floor, staring at her shoes defeatedly.

Duke sighed. “Heather, I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work, so just let me--”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No.” Mac finally looked up, and Duke saw tears shining in her brown eyes. “No.  _ No, _ I won’t let you.”

Duke scoffed.

“Please, Heather,” Mac whispered softly. “ _ Please _ , I can’t remember the last time I saw you keep down a meal, just--”

“That never bothered you before! I don’t know why this is such a big deal to you now, just let me--”

“ _ ‘Why this is such a big deal to me’ _ ? Because I fucking care about you!”

“Well, don’t! No one else does!” She hated how corny and whiny that sounded but it was the truth.

Mac bit her lip. She glanced down at her shoes before looking back up. “She does care, you know.”

Duke stiffened. “Who?”

“You know who. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but she cares. She’s really worried about you. We all are. It’s just--she’s weird about these kinds of things and doesn’t know how to get you to stop. So she insults you. Puts you down and stuff. That’s kind of just her style, right? When someone’s doing something that she doesn’t want them to do, she attacks them until they stop. She doesn’t know how to tell you that she cares, but she does. But--”

“If she cared, she wouldn’t spend so much time putting other people above me. If she cared,  _ I’d _ be the one that she’d open up to, not Veronica. She’d...I don’t know, talk to me? Do stuff with me. Tell me things other than to shut up.”

Mac sighed softly. “I was going to say...that she does care,  _ but _ ...why does that matter? Why does it matter if she cares?  _ I _ care. Why can’t that just...be enough?”

Duke winced at the hurt in Mac’s voice. “You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“No, you won’t understand.”

“Try me.” Mac twisted her fingers together, hands itching to reach out and take Duke’s. To comfort her or to stop her from running away, she wasn’t sure. Duke didn’t say anything. “Look.” Mac began. “I know that I’m...not as cool, or pretty, or popular, as Heather, but Heather saying nice things about you doesn’t make you  _ better _ in any way. So, if Heather  _ doesn’t _ say nice things about you, it also doesn’t make you worse in any way. And I...I think we both know that this isn’t really about Heather, is it? It’s about you.”

Duke gave the slightest of shrugs. Mac took this as a signal to keep going. “So...don’t think about Heather right now. Think about...me, and you, and going to that shop over there and trying on that blazer, and doing...fun stuff. You know. Like we used to.”

Duke chewed on her lip.  _ Don’t fucking listen to her, leave now, go before she stops you-- _ “‘Kay.” The word was short and her voice sounded oddly clipped as she said it, but Mac heard it all the same. Her face broke into a grin as she gave a little bounce. 

“Thank you,” she all but squealed, and, unable to contain herself, threw her arms around Duke. “Thank you,” she whispered again into her ear.

Duke gave a light chuckle as she patted Mac’s back, but her stomach knotted with guilt. “Hey--Heather?” Mac hummed in response. “You know...you know, this, uh...probably won’t...last. You know, like, it can’t really...change anything permanently.”

Mac finally pulled away from the hug. She nodded. “I know. I know, but it’s just for today, and today’s all that matters for today. We’ll just take it one day at a time, right?”

Duke gave a small smile. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, second part finished! Hope you enjoyed--again, if there are any inaccuracies or suggested changes, I'd be happy to hear them. I might make some amendments later anyways, as I'm not completely satisfied with this, but we'll see. I've always felt like in the musical at least, McNamara seemed to care for Duke more than any of the others, suggesting that she see a doctor during Beautiful and pulling Kurt away to dance when he starts harassing Duke in Big Fun. I know that Veronica also drew away Ram during Big Fun and she was the one that suggested seeing a doctor in the movie, but I honestly feel like Veronica's too apathetic to really care that much about Duke--it's much easier for her to label Duke as a "bitch" and only step in once in a while if something really bad is happening to her. Just my interpretation, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this. Again, I read and respond to every comment, and feedback is much appreciated. Cheers!


End file.
